ABSTRACT
Rubber (Hevea brasiliensis). We read that whenColumbus was in Hayti he observed that the balls with which the children played bounced better than the windballs of the Spanish children at home, and it was found on inquiry that these West Indian balls were made of a substance which exuded from certain trees. They were in fact made of ‘rubber’, as ours are to-day, but rubber at that time had never been heard of in Europe, and the
Spanish children had to be content with a very poor bounce to their balls.
